-Sage Sama? We’ve got a small situation here...-
I always encouraged a little healthy understatement as a way of controlling fear. Someone who was screaming about the end of the world wasn’t in a state of mind to give a very good report.
-Go ahead, Sergeant,- my chatty persona /replied.
-Well, there’s some dragons perching on some of the wave-hills out here in the Badlands, along the Corridor.-
-Really.- Beat. -Not trying to eat anyone?-
-No...-
-Metallic hues, or primary colors?-
-Metallic. Bronze... and silver?-
-No gold? Pity. They look like this?- Images of Shield and Valor dragons popped up in the Markspace.
-Yes!- Great relief. I wondered why more people didn’t know how to color-code dragons... Probably because changing scale color was a very minor effect abused by the nastier members of the species, and not many bothered to look at crest and scale patterns...
-There a Caster there with Messaging available?-
-Checking...- La, la, la... -Yes!-
-Tell the Caster to send this message to the silvery one, exactly as I’m saying this to you.- I /ran off some words slowly in Draconic to him, and he repeated them faithfully. -And tell me what they do.-
-Waiting...- La, la, la... -They appear to be rising... they’re taking wing down the Corridor towards The Camp, ma’am.-
-I am relaying word ahead. Anyone who shoots anything at them deserves exactly whatever the dragons decide to do to them. Don’t Stillflight them, don’t snipe them, don’t shout at them. Actually, if you wave at them nicely and blow a few horns you’ll probably stroke their egos.-
-Really?- He seemed a little astounded. -Friendly dragons...- The sergeant was astonished. After all, we’d never met any friendly ones in Nightmare...
-It’s like saying ‘friendly flesh-eating fire-breathing spell-casting genius elephants’. Keep your perspective.- I /warned him.
-Yes, Sage Sama.- he /replied quickly.
Dragons, huh...
======
Although they weren’t slow, it actually took the dragons most of a day to follow the Corridor through the Badlands, across the Dichromatic Plains, and up to The Camp where it was set next to where the Silver Worm crossed the Ring around Yle Tyorm.
Just to make sure there weren’t any undue accidents, the Stillflight Field around the Camp was very obvious, and the dragons glided down to the ground just outside it. A small troop of cavalry rode out to greet them, and another small troop of spearmen cleared away everyone lingering around the southern gate and formed an approach line for the dragons.
Colonel Markov was at the head of the lancers that rode out to greet the great winged reptiles. He made a specific set of bowing motions with hands staying down while atop his Horse, attracting their interested attention.
The Shield dragons had scales like armor, the plates especially large on their necks and bellies, with fairly crocodilian heads, a frilled crest, and layers of bronzed scales overlapping. They had four legs, the rear legs far larger than the front, all bearing great metallic claws, and they were all edged with faint, rust-like traces of green. Their builds were solid and muscular, giving the impression of armored reptiles made for war.
The Valor dragons were more slender and serpentine, their scales much finer and gleaming like polished metal. Their heads were more birdlike, with jaws ending in a razored beak, and a solid frill backing their heads. They had a nobler, more elegant look about them, their sapphire eyes very curious as they looked over everything about them.
“Greetings.” Colonel Markov looked over the five dragons - three Shields, two Valors - showing no fear of them, despite all their heads reaching up higher than his own while a-horse. “In the interest of crowded spaces and not panicking the rather high number of idiots wandering around, Sage Sama asks you to use your bipedal forms while in The Camp.” He made a gesture, and the Sorceress at his side flicked her wrist, five Disks shimmering into existence immediately. “We shall escort you in, and keep away the fools.”
“And if we do not?” the Shield dragon who was the biggest and oldest of the five asked directly, green eyes fixed on the Colonel.
“Well, anything you knock down, you have to put back together,” he replied after a moment of thought. “That includes fences knocked down by panicking horses, the tents said idiots are going to fall into screaming, the dishes they break, the tables they overturn, and the chairs they trample at the sight of you.” He wrinkled his nose. “I think you’ve got better things to do with your time, sir.”
All five dragons huffed as one, a strange combination of cool and electrically-charged air spilling over the humans. There was just a glance, and their elephant-sized bodies shimmered and flowed with great speed, pouring down in size from six-limbed dragons to humanoid forms.
They were all fully dressed; two females, one of each species, and three males, two Shields and one Valor. The Shields were in bronze robes cut to resemble armor, with raised shoulders and heavy cloth, solid boots and trousers, and looked like deeply bronzed southern humans, with dark hair and green eyes. The Valors were in more casual blue and white tunics, high black boots, and riding pants, looking like fair-skinned carefree noble humans out for an excursion, their hair light, long, and gleaming white.
Naturally, they were all quite handsome or beautiful, with the imposing manners typical of the very confident.
The dragons hopped onto the waiting Disks, unperturbed, and if an arc or two of lightning crackled between the Shield dragons’ eyes, everyone took it as a proper hint that they hadn’t lost their powers just because they looked like humans.
Colonel Markov pointed, everyone turned about, falling into escort positions behind the five dragons on Disks, and they trotted calmly back towards the Camp.
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The spearmen all pounded their glowing Spears and brought them down in salute behind the dragons, earning a flicker of approval for the courtesy, if nothing else.
---------
Colonel Markov gave them a quick tour of the place. They’d already seen it from above, so he was merely explaining who and what went where, what was going on, indicating the camps of elves, dwarves, southerners, northerners, and the rather uneven ones of the mercenaries and merchants moving back and forth along the Road.
Only the bravest and most skilled of mercenaries were signing up for the battles now, most contenting themselves with slaying the unending numbers of raiding beasts and creatures stirred up by the Warp Storms along the Corridor. They were mostly taking service as auxiliary troops alongside the knights and crusaders who had come up from the south, as no mercenary had successfully established a warband of their own... at least not without being beat all to Hell, and finding a lack of enthusiasm on the part of new recruits.
I was largely done with carving Marks for now, and had moved on to real Tattoos for those who had earned sufficient battle honors... and had the blood of magical beasts for the foundation inks. This was akin to forging magical Weapons or Armor, which I could also spend all day doing, but making Soul Tats was not a skill practiced by the many Powered here, and only a few members of the Ironblood had learned the skill to use on their fellows.
It was also much slower, and I couldn’t work as fast as I could on Weapons. Still, I finished my most recent customer/mommy-screaming-victim, etching the black and blue Shock Gauntlets across the top of his hands, and the grimly scarred Lieutenant Hendriks bowed to me before quickly making himself absent. Soul Essence flared on the Tats, crackling arcs of electricity moved around his fists. His face had a grimly satisfied expression as he left the tent where I was working.
I looked up as the dragons stepped inside, the Disks following them, and I sized them up as they looked at my Tatted face in astonishment.
“Have a seat,” I waved to them, indicating the Disks, and they looked back, at one another, and then sat down on the Disks they’d been standing on.
Haul drifted over, and I levered up a flat stony circle on top of it with no effort. It deCompressed, turning into a table ten feet across, and I sat down calmly on midair, mist slowly falling from the glowing blue-white Tats on my ankles and shins, across from five dragons.
“You’ve come a long way to find me. I am Sage Sama, by default the leader, administrator, and Warlord of this effort to fight the minions of the Warp Gods intruding into this world from the Rift over yonder.” I waved negligently in its direction. “May I ask your intentions here? It would probably not surprise you to learn that our recent interactions with dragons have all been on the extremely violent ‘eat native bipedal sentients rarrgh’ side of things.” My Draconic was extremely precise, if lacking some of the resounding depth that really made the language shine.
The dragons had all drifted up around the table, and found it very secure and fixed in place.
From a side entrance, a Rockborn came trundling in with another Disk, this one made of copper, and piled high with bottles, snack boats, glasses, and the like. He deftly passed out the buttered snails to the Shield dragons, the iced fruits to the Valor dragons, and the whiskey and wine to former and latter respectively.
The dragons actually smiled slightly as they enjoyed the trifles. Their eyes opened as they sampled the liquor, and made small compliments for it in delight, as they’d never tasted anything quite like it. Elves didn’t normally make whiskey, and dwarves were largely centered on mushrooms and common grains, so elven whiskey and dwarven wine from their alchemists was indeed a new experience.
“We are here to lend our aid to fighting the Warped,” the oldest of the dragons said, looking like a powerfully-built deeply bronzed human in his late thirties. He had a scar along his cheek, ragged and not made by a weapon, which had also been obvious on his draconic form. “All wise beings should gather to such a fight,” he stated firmly, as if it were obvious.
“Hmm. I will have to request that you not do so,” I replied after only a moment.
Despite themselves, the dragons twitched in surprise. I seemed open-minded and well-informed, so this was quite unexpected. The lead dragon studied me for a while, I studied him back without blinking, and he finally hmphed. “I see that you have considered this well. May we inquire as to why?” he asked, rather stiffly.
“It’s the nature of the Warp Gods to give the people fighting... things to fight that are equal to them or stronger. They want to see great big fights and lots of blood, after all.” I tilted my head slightly. “Given that logic, what do you imagine will happen if dragons start joining our forces?”
Their lips pursed despite themselves. The male Valor was the first to answer, “They will start sending out dragons themselves...”
“Which they already do, but very limited in numbers.” I looked them all over. “On average, we’re fighting four to six battles a day right now, every day. More than ten thousand Warped pouring out of that Rift, every day, with all their attendant creatures and demons along for fun and jollies. If I can, I would prefer that number not increase by at least five dragons a day.”
“At least five Warped dragons a day,” the lead Shield repeated. “You are certain of this?”
“Certain? No. Extremely confident? Yes. And once it starts... it won’t stop. They’ll force you to keep fighting every single day, by sending out more dragons. If you aren’t capable of stopping them, then we’re going to have to. You are dragons, you know how dangerous you are. I really don’t want to have to deal with an ever-increasing number of dragons every day. The Gods of the Warp have their own pet universe. They can send out dragons every day for the next millennium if they want to.
“You going out there to fight with us is going to start an escalating arms race I want no part of, and would prefer to push off as long as possible.
“Now, I imagine I am also too late, and you were probably noticed as soon as you entered the Badlands. They’re probably going to wait, see if you commit, and then if you don’t, force the issue. But I would prefer to put that off as long as possible, and away from the battlefield, where mass use of breath weapons is highly undesirable.”
The dragons hummed, bending over to quietly confer in subsonics back and forth. The lead Shield nodded, and turned back to me. “We agree that accelerating this form of response is unwise. Nevertheless, we would like to help where we can. How may we contribute?”
“Corridor purging duty,” I replied immediately. “There is always stuff intruding on the Corridor we’re getting our supplies from, sometimes in excessive numbers. You saw the forces we have stationed at waypoints on your flight here. We’ve got thousands of bodies moving along the Corridor to provide security, and they’ve always got something to do. If you want to contribute a bunch of dragonfear to driving some lethal annoyances off, and some fulminous exhalations to deal with others, I can move those people here to participate in the fighting.” I turned my head to glance at the Rift. “Question: what’s the effective audial range of a dragon’s challenge?”
The leader looked interested at my question. “We can hear a challenge from one of our own at a hundred miles or more. Why do you ask?”
“Because when they start sending dragons out from the Rift, I’d like you to pull them out into the Badlands with a challenge and kill them.”
Hard smiles spread across their faces. “That should not be an issue,” he agreed grimly.
I nodded. “Second thing, you are going to have to be very, very careful of the Warpstorms outside the Corridor. It is entirely possible and definitely probable that the Warp Gods are going to make special efforts to catch you in them. I don’t have enough telstang on hand to make you Torcs to defy that kind of mutation magic, but I can order some. If you get caught... well, you’re dragons, they are gods. I think you understand what is probably going to happen to you.”
The dragons stared at me in silence, then looked at one another. They had pride, but they weren’t stupid. This whole thing was directly set up by insane Evil gods. If they weren’t wary, they were stupid.
“Understood. You can give us a defense against this?”
“Yes. The basic touch of Energized Telstang defies all transmutational magic, for good or ill. So, a Warpstorm won’t be able to mutate you. On the other hand, they will definitely send out Casters with anti-dragon magic to attempt to enslave you, so you had best keep up anti-enchantment magic at all times.”
They hummed in a hostile manner. Their enemies were not simple... and more than audacious enough to attempt to enslave dragons!
“If you like, I would also like to extend a formal invitation to join the Marktell and to get your Chakras for Soul Magic Opened.” They blinked at me, and I smiled as the Holopoint presentation rolled into action...